port on the geology of New Brunswick; and specimens were shown to me several years ago, by the late Professor Robb of Fredericton. Those from Perry are mentioned in the report of Dr. Jackson on the geology of Maine, and have also been noticed by Prof. Rogers in the proceedings of the Natural History Society of Boston. No adequate description of them has however yet been published; and it is to this task that I would address myself in the present paper. I shall notice first the plants from St. John, next those from Perry, and finally a new form from Gaspé.

1. ST. JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK.

The city of St. John stands on the rocks constituting what I have elsewhere termed the coast metamorphic belt of New Brunswick,* an irregular ridge rising through the Carboniferous rocks, and extending from Shepody mountain south-westward along the north side of the Bay of Fundy to the St. John River, westward of which it expands into a broad band of metamorphic and plutonic rocks, extending into the State of Maine. In the vicinity of St. John these rocks consist principally of white and gray crystalline limestone, hard shales and slates of various colours and qualities, quartz rock, and indurated gray sandstone. With these are associated syenite, greenstone, and trappean rocks, some of the latter appearing to be interstratified. The crystalline limestone is of great thickness and destitute of fossils; but contains small quantities of graphite. In the shales near the limestone is a regular bed of graphite, attaining in places a thickness of four feet. It is of coarse quality, and retains obscure traces of vegetable structure. Some of the beds of sandstone and shale contain numerous fossil plants, their carbon being in the state of graphite, and the fragments, though abundant, not easily studied, owing to their imperfect preservation, and the hardness. of the enclosing rock. A bed of sandy shale is filled with fragments of Lingula, which were discovered by Prof. Rogers, but which neither he nor Mr. Billings, to whom I have shown specimens, can refer to any known species.

The arrangement of the beds at St. John is shown by the ac

• Acadian Geology.

companying section prepared by Mr. Matthew, and which accords with such observations as I have been able to make.

(a) Lower carboniferous conglomerate. (b) Crystalline limestones of St. John group. (c) Syenite. (d) Bed of graphite. (e) Interstratified trappean rock. (f) Slates, shales, and sandstones of St. John group.

With respect to the age of these beds; in the absence of determinable animal fossils, I may state the following facts. (1) The limestone and its associated shales underlie unconformably the Lower Carboniferous conglomerate, which here appears to be the oldest member of that system. This arrangement is general throughout the belt to which the St. John rocks belong, (2) The whole of the beds of the St. John group, appear to be conformable to one another and to constitute one formation. (3) In min. eral character, and especially in the occurrence of thick beds of limestone and of graphite, the St. John rocks do not resemble any of the Devonian or Silurian rocks of Nova Scotia, though these occur in a similar state of metamorphism. They more nearly resemble the Devonian of Gaspé. The Devonian rocks. known in Nova Scotia, appear to belong to the lower rather than to the upper member of that system,* and they have afforded no plants except indeterminable fragments. (4) The plants found in the rocks of the St. John group, are specifically distinct from those of the Carboniferous system in Nova Scotia and New Bruns wick.

In the map attached to Prof. Johnston's Report on the Agriculture of New Brunswick, Prof. Robb has coloured these rocks as Lower Silurian. In my Acadian Geology, on the ground chiefly of mineral character, I have with doubt placed them as Upper Silurian or Devonian. The facts at present known show them to be older than the Carboniferous system, though perhaps belonging to the newest part of the Devonian.

The following are the plants which I have been able to determine :

Supplement to Acadian Geology, also Canadian Naturalist, Vol. 4.

1. Dadoxylon Ouangondianum.*-Sp. nov.

Figs. 1and 2.-Dadoxylon Ouangondianum.

Fig. 1.-Transverse section 50 diams. (a) Wood cells. (b) Line of growth.

Fig. 2.-Longitudinal section, radial. (a) Disc structure. (b) Medullary rays. Description.-Branching trunks, with distinct zones of growth, and a

pith of Sternbergia type. Wood cells very large, with three to five rows of contiguous alternate hexagonal areoles with oval pores. Medullary rays with one to three series of cells, and as many as 14 rows of cells superimposed on each other.

Trunks of this fine coniferous tree are not infrequent in the St. John sandstones explored by Mr. Matthew. They retain their structure in great perfection, especially in silicified specimens. Some of the trunks have been a foot or more in diameter. They show traces of growth rings on their weathered ends, and when perfect, are traversed by the transversely wrinkled pith cylinders, formerly known as Sternbergia. Under the microscope the wood cells are seen to be of remarkable size, being fully one-third larger in their diameter than those of Pinus strobus or Araucaria Cunninghami, and also much larger than those of the ordinary coniferous trees of the coal measures. They are beautifully marked with contiguous hexagonal areoles, in which are inscribed oval slits or pores, placed diagonally. The medullary rays are large and frequent, but their cells, unlike the wood cells (prosenchyma), are more small and delicate than those of the trees just mentioned. The pith when perfectly preserved, presents a

I have named this species after the ancient Indian designation of the St. John River, Ouangonda. I use the generic term Dadoxylon as probably best known to English geologists; but I sympathise with Goeppert in his preference of the generic term Araucarites for such trees.

continuous cylinder of cellular tissue, wrinkled longitudinally without, and transversely within, and giving forth internally delicate transverse partitions which coalesce toward the centre,

Figs. 3 and 4.-Dadoxylon Ouangondianum.

Fig. 3.-Fragment of wood cell prepared by nitric acid. (a) 200 diameters. (b) Single areole more highly magnified.

Fig. 4. Sternbergia pith. (a) Outer carbonised coating. (b) Transverse plates. (c) Fragment of wood attached to exterior. (d) Section showing internal structure, natural size.

leaving there a series of lenticular spaces, a peculiarity which I have not heretofore observed in these Sternbergia pith cylinders. It is interesting to find in a Devonian conifer the same structure of pith characteristic of some of its allies in the coal formation, where however, as I have elsewhere shown,* such structures occur in Sigillaria as well; and since Corda has ascertained a similar structure in Lomatofloyos, a plant allied to Ulodendron, it would appear that the Sternbergia may have belonged to plants of very dissimilar organization.

In my specimen the pith is only half an inch in diameter, and only a small portion of the wood is attached to it; but Mr. Matthew has a specimen of a trunk ten inches in diameter, with the pith one inch in thickness, and another 11 inches in diam. eter, with the pith 24 inches. Both had the appearance of decayed trunks, so that their original size may have been considerably greater.

Paper on Coal Structures. Journal of Geol. Survey.

Mr. Matthew states in reference to the mode of occurrence of this interesting species, that the wood is always in the state of anthracite or graphite, or mineralized by iron pyrites, calc spar or silica. The pith is usually calcified, but in pyritised trunks it often appears as a sandstone cast with the external wrinkles of Sternbergia. The pith is often eccentric, and specimens occur with two or three centres; but these either consist of several trunks in juxtaposition, or are branching stems. The annual layers vary from th to th of an inch in thickness, and adjoining layers sometimes vary from th to th of an inch.

The trunks of this species appear to have had a strong tendency to split in decay along the medullary rays, and in consequence the cross section often presents a radiating structure of

Fig. 5.-Calamites transitionis. (p. 168.)

alternating black lines representing the wedges of wood, and white rays of calc spar. The heart wood seems to have had its cell